Here's one for the record books. Cyndi Lauper has come back with a marvelous blues record Memphis Blues which came out in June without much publicity. Her Denver appearance with eTown along with Charlie Musselwhite, however, gave her a chance to really show what she's made of and with her usual dramatic flair that is the real Cyndi Lauper. The last time I had seen her in concert was back in 2003 when she had come out with an album of old torch-y standards like Unchained Melody, On the Sunny Side of the Street and Hymn to Love. The album was titled At Last and it was a stupendous breakout album even though her voice was showing a little wear by then. In concert she amazed me with her voice, however, and put to rest any fears that she might be tiring or had done damage. Her vocal range is almost inhuman and the emotion she conveys in her singing is overpowering. I think I danced more through that concert than any I've ever been to and I felt like I was at a disco ! ! Talk about fun.
She got a chance to show this Memphis side we hadn't seen yet and it was absolutely what I expected and more. She was a great compliment to Charley Musselwhite who I admit was unknown to me until this stint. On September 23rd at 9 p.m. at the Paramount Theater in Denver, Cyndi gave a blowout performance which was to be expected since her forte' has always been live performance. Some people who have not kept up with her career past her 80s pop singer days will be amazed at her range and power. Furthermore, when she was asked recently about this seeming about face she said, "The last record I did was a dance record and I want them to know what this is and I figure Memphis Blues can't get any more straightforward. The blues are the root of everything that we do on radio today so it's not a stretch if you're a singer singing pop music to hear the 1-4-5 chord and understand exactly what that is. It's part of our heritage and tradition."
When interviewed in the summer she said, "This is the music I listened to to learn how to sing. The great blues artists were the rockers, the jazzers, the hip-hoppers of their day. I wanted to be authentic so I went to Memphis. I said, "It has to be dirty. It can't be clean and pristine, 'cause that ain't what it's about for me."
"...I had a dream that Oscar Peterson told me that I should take old songs and make them modern. When I made this CD it was the closest I came to fulfilling what I was kind of told to do in the dream."
Cyndi is a 13 Grammy award winner who originally hailed from the Bronx in New York. She broke into musical stardom with her debut album titled She's So Unusual after many years of singing in musical circuits which required lots of musical covers. She became popular because she could mimic any female singer in the business. This 57 year old dynamo has had fortitude unmatched when she sang one year of her 80s stint singing nearly every single day of that year with one day off. I don't know of anybody in the world with that kind of energy, personally and I imagine my readers don't either.
She has also won 2 Emmys for work as an actress (!), 2 American Music Awards, 7 American Video Awards and no less than 18 MTV Awards ! She's better at reinventing herself than any entertainer you can name and her causes range from gay rights to Hurricane Katrina benefits and animal protection and she still looks like she's thirty-something which is not an easy achievement in and of itself with her schedule.
World- look out- Cyndi's back in town and she means business ! !
eTown that is....Evelyn's Town ! ! !
The Castle Lady
